Atlas
by trufflemores
Summary: The Flash takes a walk by itself.


It's a unique burden, carrying the full weight of the Speed Force on his shoulders.

Sometimes it's easier to let the weight carry itself.

Walking down the streets of Central City, The Flash looks around. Call it sleep-walking, or maybe Speed-walking: either way, Barry checked out a while ago. Under cover of darkness, The Flash is a spectral, a barely-there apparition in the shadows. Look too closely and you'll see the abyss looking back at you within those golden, glowing eyes; look away and you'll never know it was there.

Angels say, _Do not be afraid._

The Flash says, _Heed me._

It isn't a thinking thing, not in the human sense, but it ambitions in the energetic sense, a loose radical in the multiverse, singularly focused on its own trajectory. It wouldn't breathe, except Barry would pass out, severing their immediate point of contact. It wouldn't sleep, except Barry would go insane, and it already watched with unattached interest as Reverse took over Eobard Thawne to that affect, rendering their partnership devoid of true meaning. It would leap or lunge or fly unimpeded, were it not so _heavy_.

It can hunt down the ends of existence and double back for fun, capture stars in its claws and hang them wherever it so desires, reverse and Flash-forward through time effortlessly. It is masterful, transmuting and traversing nature, capable of crushing death and maiming or killing on command. It is awesome, in a take-a-knee sense, encouraging one to cower more safely near the Earth.

The Earth responds deferentially to its touch, a silent observer yielding buoyantly underfoot. When it walks – and it must walk, lest it disintegrate completely into the Speed it is made of – it respects the way the ground moves, the way it responds to each step. Like a great living force, the Earth gives it strength, balance. It is the Earth – as much as it is Speed, it is the Earth, too.

It is the Earth when it dances. It is the Earth's ocean blues when it bruises, Earth's volcanic reds when it bleeds, Earth's yellow sunrises when it runs. It is the Earth's ambassador to the great ethereal Otherness from which it is made, and it takes a knee with Earthly reverence before the Speed Force.

 _Why did you run away?_ The Speed Force needn't ask, because whether it is here, on the streets, or Elsewhere, it is still fundamentally Speed Force. _The Flash_ is simply a moniker, a title, a name. _The Other_ is equally apropos.

When it was Speed Force and Speed Force alone, it was perfect, but it is _whole_ when it breathes, when it bleeds, when it becomes part of the Earth, too. It isn't always Earth, and it certainly isn't always Barry – but it knows itself through Barry, identifies itself with Barry, is in some small way indebted to Barry.

If Barry didn't exist, then neither would it. And though it is part of the Awesome Other, the unquenchable flame of life that will be carried by countless voyagers over countless eons, it is selfish, too. The starry nights are what it lives for, the walks through its homeland and being able to call it Homeland. It doesn't have a home, an origin, a story. It simply Is. Always has been.

Exhaling, it watches Speed steam into the multiverse. And it smiles, because it can.

It'll miss this, already misses it, never had it, wants it, despises it. It is diffuse in a way that Barry is not, extending across infinite lifetimes, infinite speedsters. It is at once alien and apart from as it is fundamentally the Reverse.

It knows Kid, the King, who will assume its own place once it vanishes. King is the mantle it is meant to wear, expected to; already, an eclipsical power resides in Wally's shoulders. King chafes, waiting; but it is also patiently, infinitely so, with childlike irreverence. Exploring its own strengths, younger than Flash, but they're of the same essence. "Younger" doesn't exist, where they come from.

 _We_. It's a useful pronoun, somehow singular and plural. _I_ and _you._ I exist; you do, too.

The Speed Force can call itself a _we_ because it is. It is every Barry, every Wally.

Every Jesse Quick, too. Quick – as her namesake suggests – is destined to be Queen. And where Flash comes from, that is no parenthetical aside. There's a reason humans worship Mother Nature, a reason why Speed Force, seemingly inexplicably, selects male humans disproportionately often. The multiverse chose its Queen. Others may target the seat of the King, but they will never displace the Queen. The King is a volatile seat, a vanishing moment in time, but the Queen reigns in perpetuity.

Flash?

Self-identification is trickier. It can't say where it begins and Barry ends. Perhaps because, unlike Kid, unlike Quick, unlike Reverse, it isn't a role. It isn't a breath, a pulse, a neuron spark, even though it is all of these things. It is totality. It isn't a piece of the Speed Force.

It is the _entire_ Speed Force.

And it shares itself, a heartbeat with Kid and Trajectory, a breath with Quick and Savitar, a neuron spark with Reverse and Zoom.

But _it_ – in the singular, identifiable, _Other_ sense – resides in one place. Speed Force is diffuse – it cannot undo its own nature.

But to truly live here, it must be concentrated. It must choose.

It can be a rhythm that resides in so many heartbeats, but in the end, it can only possess one.

Someone spots it, and for a moment, Flash is caught off-guard. It pauses. It waits. The stranger blinks, and Flash is gone.

Reappearing at the outskirts of the city, The Flash takes its time walking across the grassy turf. With meditative steadiness, it absorbs every sensation, savoring it. There's something immeasurably frustrating about great, untapped strength, but there's also something beautiful about it. Like a fire that burns in a dark room, it stands out in its solitude, in its humbled alternative, not overwhelming the rest but becoming part of it.

The Flash slows, breathing silver sparks, a familiar human weariness creeping in. Stopping a train – easy for the Speed Force in its uncaptured form, immeasurably difficult in its human alternative – took a lot out of them. Plural.

 _You and me._

Barry halts with thunderclap instantaneity, falling to his knees on Earth that is tough on them, Earth that catches him. For a moment, he cannot stand, the weight of himself and the Speed Force almost too much to bear. There were days, early days, when it felt like too much. Even now, he exhales slow and deep and rhythmic, aware in that indefinable way of another presence, lightning-under-his-skin.

Flash picks him up, plants his hands on the Earth and pushes until he's on his feet.

The burn in his limbs will be hell in the morning.

But when he runs, when _Flash_ runs, it's pure, unadulterated joy.


End file.
